Television viewers and newspaper readers following the political scene in Egypt may have been struck by the most recent spate of violence involving pro-President Morsi Muslim Brotherhood followers who launched a brutal attack on peaceful demonstrators which left five dead and hundreds injured.
What happened? What went wrong? The truth of the matter is that any reading of the recent political thinking from the Muslim Brotherhood (forget about the public relations interviews) suggests that this is just the beginning.
The worst is yet to come. In case some are wondering whether this is too gloomy, please note that all the evidence we have suggests some of the predictions below (number 4-9) are already coming to life.
Here are my predictions:
1: The Muslim Brotherhood, supported by other Islamist factions, will secure the needed majority vote for passing the constitution- even when all non-Islamist political forces boycott the referendum.
We will see a repeat of the referendum on the proposed amendments to the constitution that we witnessed in March 2011, in which the Brothers (and other Islamists) mobilized a Muslim majority poor population to mark the green circle if they loved their religion (green being symbolic of Islam) and black if they wanted to follow the infidels and their religious leaders (Christian Orthodox priests in Egypt wear a black turban-like head gear).
2: The Brothers and the Salafis will win the parliamentary elections which will be neither free or fair, as religion will be used instrumentally to the maximum effect, propped up by welfare services and backed by direct vote purchasing.
However, the parliamentary elections will meet the West's satisfaction of being a milestone onto democracratization because the Islamists would have won via the ballot boxes.
3: The new parliament will issue legislation of a political nature that enables further monopolisation of power into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood.
It will also issue legislation of an ideological nature to deepen the Islamization of state and society by introducing new laws and revoking old ones, all under the banner of endorsing Shariah-compliance.
4. There will be a "cleansing" of the judiciary of all elements within it that are not friendly to the Muslim Brotherhood regime. This will be achieved through so-called constitutional and legal means.
Instead, new graduates of Shariah school from Al-Azhar University (one of the Sunni world's largest establishments) will be appointed as judges in their hundreds. Gradually, women judges will either be appointed to administrative non- judicial tasks or they will be "encouraged" to take up early retirement
5. The margin of separation between the executive, the judicial and the legislative will narrow increasingly, such that there will be a synchronization of agendas to endorse the Islamist state.
Facilitating and catalyzing such a merger will be led by the new class of ulama (religious scholars) who will play a more behind-the-scenes role at first, beginning but that will become increasingly open afterwards.
6. The opposition and its key leaders will be subject to intense vilification (and possibly tried) for being antagonistic towards the implementation of God's laws and being disrespectful towards the Muslim ruler.
Eventually the more confrontational leftist political parties will be dissolved under the premise that their normative framework is in defiance with the Shariah.
7. Women's rights will shrink considerably. More young girls will be given in marriage before or in early puberty and in poor areas sex trafficking will increase.
This will be covered under the mantra of marriage, which will in some instances increase polygamy. The percentage of women in leadership positions at all levels of governance will diminish and violence against women will increase under various guises.
8. Religious pluralism will be a thing of the past. More religious cleansing of the country's ten percent Christian population will happen, through the expulsion of people from their villages and towns.
Increasingly, the Islamists will mobilise people to "weed out" undesirables and present them for trial for insulting Islam and his prophet Mohamed.
9. Poverty will continue to grow, but Egypt will become an increasingly "sadaqa society", to use Deniz Kandiyoti's term. A sadaqa society is premised on the practice of Islamic charity where aid is distributed to the needy and faithful.
The culture of the poor being the objects of religious-inspired benevolence rather than citizens with entitlements will become increasingly diffuse.
10. Independent media outlets (in particular satellite broadcasting) will be subject to increasing repression and some will be closed down.
The freedom of the press will shrink considerably and in some instances, the government will not have to do anything about it - the Muslim Brotherhood militias will assume the responsibility of intimidating and threatening media professionals sufficiently such that they either quit or self-censor.
11 Finally - and this may possibly lead to a toppling of the regime - the Muslim Brotherhood will announce war with Israel. In order to do that, they could not (and would not) rely on the state of the Egyptian army.
Resorting to other regional forces will be necessary and all kinds of military alliances will be made. This may seem unlikely now in view of Morsi's brokering of the ceasefire in Gaza and his cosy relationship with the US government, but that will eventually change.
Mariz Tadros is a Research Fellow in the Participation, Power and Social Change research team at IDS.
Read other recent blogs by Mariz Tadros:
Fascism: the ugly face of unruly politics
The Egyptian Revolution and the parable of the of man who occupies your house
From unruly politics to ballot boxes: rethinking the terms of democratic engagement in Egypt
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the whole mark of so called liberal parties in Egypt. You essentially are afraid of the elections exposing the real popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood and the weakness of the so called liberal parties. The MB surely has something to work on with regards to their democratic ideas. But to invent the fiction of them purging the courts from women and filling them with students from Azhar is nothing less than fear mongering and is completely untrue. The MB is among the oldest political parties in Egypt. Part of its repeated success in every election in the Arab world is the highly dedicated, educated and discipline female activists. This is something now a common knowledge. If it is not for the young university student female activists, they could never win. The so called liberal parties on the other hand have rusty, patriarchal masculine and traditional mindset which neglects women altogether. How many women leaders can you find in these so called liberal parties? The MB has failed to assuage significant portion of the Egyptian people's fears. That is true. They have committed mistakes. But let us not invent fictitious scenarios that are far from the reality. They are nt Taliban and Egypt is not Afghanistan. Even if some fanatic wished to carry out the terrible things you are projecting, they won’t be able to. Egyptian people will not allow anyone to usurp their liberty anymore.
Your article lacks basic understanding of the facts on the ground and is full of misinformation and errors. It fails to read the history of the MB and the global Islamic movement’s changing position with regards to democracy and human rights. Look at Tunisia. Look at Turkey. Or even Morocco. Fear mongerers have predicted doomsdays in these places as well upon the victory of the Islamists.
Unfortunately none of what you have written is close to reality whatsoever. You have constructed a terrible scenario and you have fallen for it. You are also inconsistent which has unfortunately become the whole mark of so called liberal parties in Egypt. You essentially are afraid of the elections exposing the real popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood and the weakness of the so called liberal parties. The MB surely has something to work on with regards to their democratic ideas. But to invent the fiction of them purging the courts from women and filling them with students from Azhar is nothing less than fear mongering and is completely untrue. The MB is among the oldest political parties in Egypt. Part of its repeated success in every election in the Arab world is the highly dedicated, educated and discipline female activists. This is something now a common knowledge. If it is not for the young university student female activists, they could never win. The so called liberal parties on the other hand have rusty, patriarchal masculine and traditional mindset which neglects women altogether. How many women leaders can you find in these so called liberal parties? The MB has failed to assuage significant portion of the Egyptian people's fears. That is true. They have committed mistakes. But let us not invent fictitious scenarios that are far from the reality. They are nt Taliban and Egypt is not Afghanistan. Even if some fanatic wished to carry out the terrible things you are projecting, they won’t be able to. Egyptian people will not allow anyone to usurp their liberty anymore.
Your article lacks basic understanding of the facts on the ground and is full of misinformation and errors. It fails to read the history of the MB and the global Islamic movement’s changing position with regards to democracy and human rights. Look at Tunisia. Look at Turkey. Or even Morocco. Fear mongerers have predicted doomsdays in these places as well upon the victory of the Islamists.